Mexico Ruling Party Suffers Election Setback

Loss Bolsters Zedillo Pledge For Democracy

February 14, 1995|By Colin McMahon, Tribune Staff Writer.

COMITAN, Mexico — The nation's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, under attack over its handling of the peso devaluation and the Zapatista rebellion in southern Chiapas state, on Monday conceded its worst election defeat in history.

The concession may be as noteworthy as the outcome, as the surging center-right National Action Party (PAN) swept to victory in the northern state of Jalisco in Sunday's gubernatorial election and dozens of municipal races.

The rare defeat underscores continuing problems for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its unsteady hold on power.

But at the same time, it represents a vindication of sorts for President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon.

Since taking power Dec. 1, Zedillo has promised his own citizens and anxious foreign investors that he would enact political reforms to match Mexico's economic openings of the past decade.

Now, with the world watching Mexico amid its economic crisis and the rebellion in Chiapas, the election in Jalisco appears to bolster Zedillo's claims that his nation can deliver on its pledge of democracy, in this one state at least.

"Zedillo's image gains a lot because people see that the election was transparent, it was credible-and importantly, it was in peace," said Cesar Morones, director of public opinion at the University of Guadalajara.

"Zedillo kept his word to respect the vote, and this will have a long-lasting impact on his image," Morones said.

With more than half the ballots counted from Sunday's voting, PAN candidate Alberto Cardenas had captured 54 percent of the ballots for governor, compared with 36 percent for his PRI challenger. The race widely was seen as a referendum on the rule of the PRI and Zedillo.

"Finally, the people lost their fear of change," Cardenas declared Monday in Guadalajara, Jalisco's capital and Mexico's second-largest city.

The PAN margin of victory over PRI candidate Eugenio Ruiz Orozco surprised observers who wondered whether the ruling party would permit a clean election and thus risk losing control of Jalisco and its 5.5 million residents.

In Chiapas, meanwhile, the Mexican army and the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army passed a fourth day without a major confrontation. But in the first interview with rebel leaders since Zedillo ordered the arrests last week of six guerrilla chiefs, a Zapatista field commander accused the army of torturing suspects and vowed to come out fighting if the alleged abuses continue.

"A war could be unleashed in any moment," a rebel leader with the nom de guerre Maj. Ana Maria told Reuters news service. "If Ernesto Zedillo is open to dialogue, well, the Zapatista army is too. But if Ernesto Zedillo says `war,' we will have to respond."

Mexico's army has arranged a few media pools in which reporters are helicoptered into the jungle zone and then escorted by soldiers. But troops continue barring journalists, independent observers and Red Cross personnel from a large swath of Chiapas state.

Even well outside the Zapatista zone, soldiers blocked roads leading toward the combat zone. As a result, charges of army abuses couldn't independently be confirmed or refuted.

The main object of the military manhunt, Subcommander Marcos, remained hidden Monday along with an estimated 2,000 Zapatista followers in the Lacandon jungle. Since hundreds of tanks, helicopters and armored personnel carriers began entering Zapatista territory last week, the rebels have fled deeper into the jungle.

In a letter made public late Sunday, Marcos accused Zedillo of making a deal with the U.S. to send in the army in exchange for billions of dollars in loan guarantees to shore up Mexico's economy.

Marcos also denied, with his customary elan, that he is who Zedillo says he is: a 37-year-old former college professor named Rafael Sebastian Vicente Guillen.

Taking exception to the photo of Guillen that the government is distributing, Marcos said: "This new Subcommander Marcos is good-looking? This makes me really ugly, and ruins all of my correspondences with women."

Predictions of a "Chiapas effect" on Sunday's vote in Jalisco-that is, a swinging of the election to the Institutional Revolutionary Party because of the crisis-failed to materialize.

Jalisco becomes only the fourth state in the PRI's 65-year history to fall to an opposition party. The National Action Party now controls Baja California, Chihuahua and Guanajuato.

The apparent Jalisco landslide represents its largest margin of victory, however.

Cardenas, a 36-year-old former farmer and relative newcomer to politics, rode a high turnout to victory in spite of PRI efforts to paint the National Action Party as intolerant and far right-wing.

Instead, PAN capitalized on voter bitterness over Mexico's economic crisis and a growing cynicism that the PRI is unable to reform itself and thus reform the nation.

"The PAN is a good party," Morones said Monday in a telephone interview from Guadalajara. "But according to our polls, about 27 percent of the people saw this as a vote to punish the PRI."

Besides the governorship, the PAN was on its way to winning control of the state legislature and nearly three-quarters of Jalisco's mayoral races.

The election outcome likely ensures for Zedillo continued PAN support for his political reform agenda and for his military crackdown in Chiapas.

Last week in Guadalajara, the PAN's national leader pointed to Jalisco as a major test for Zedillo.